Treating Customers Fairly

It won't have escaped your attention that the FSA places great emphasis on Treating Customers Fairly or TCF.

This FSA initiative will run and run. The March 2007 deadline has come and gone. The bad news is that only 41% of small firms met this deadline and the figure was much lower for small mortgage firms.

In light of this, the FSA set two further deadlines for 2008. By March 2008, every firm must have appropriate management information in place to demonstrate they do indeed treat customers fairly. By the end of December 2008, firms must be able to demonstrate they are consistently treating customers fairly.

Some key questions:

	What does TCF actually mean in practice?
	What are other firms doing? In other words, what does best practice look like?
	What are the priority steps to take in planning and implementing TCF?
	How have you integrated TCF into the way you run your business?
	How is TCF communicated to all of your staff and acted upon?

If you want some answers, why not talk to us? If you want to self-audit, why not download our audit tool and kick-start TCF in your business today?

Click here

Retail Distribution Review (RDR)

The FSA dropped a bit of a bombshell in June 2007 by publishing its Retail Distribution Review or RDR. Although this is only a discussion paper (and nothing concrete is likely to result from it for a couple of years), it does reflect long held concerns by the FSA about remuneration and levels of professionalism within Financial Services.

Some key questions:

	What would our business look like if the RDR goes forward, e.g. full advice, focused advice, primary advice?
	How will our business plan and processes need to change?
	How do we give our advisers the ability and confidence to operate fee-based advice?
	How do we identify the knowledge and skills our staff will need in the future to demonstrate these higher levels of professionalism?

If you would like to consider some of the answers, why not talk to us?